New Report Analyzes How Crypto Backdoors, Interference with Crypto, and Compelled Disclosure of Encryption Keys All Impact Free Expression and Privacy

Defending encryption is a human rights issue, according to a new Amnesty International report. The report calls on nation-states to promote the use of encryption tools as part of their international human rights obligations to protect the privacy of their populations.

Amnesty particularly notes the role of encryption in promoting free expression:

Imagine a new, disruptive company figured out a way to let hundreds of people watch a single purchased copy of a movie, even though the rightsholders who made that movie objected. The new company charged money for this service, and gave none of it back to the movie's creators. That's exactly the business model that a controversial project at the Web's premier open standards organization seeks to prevent.

Of course, it's also the business model of Netflix, circa 1997, not to mention every prior video rental service relying on the traditional principle that a copyright owner's control ended when they sold a copy of the work.

A prominent Vietnamese blogger and his assistant were sentenced to prison last week in Hanoi for their work on a popular web site, read by millions of Vietnamese, that reported on human rights and government corruption. The case raises alarms of a new wave of repression against independent media and free expression online in Vietnam.